Kings Fall to Pawns
by scarlettshazam
Summary: On Friday night, Tweek drops acid, Craig wants to run away, and they both discover something interesting about each other. Sort of. Creek oneshot.


**Soundtrack: A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under - Why?**

Friday nights are Tweek's nights. He's kept Fridays as time to be alone, a strict regimen to begin typically chaotic or work-filled weekends with sprawling hours of time to himself. He doesn't sleep well at night, anyway – so he spends the wee hours pacing his kitchen drinking tea (he tries to keep coffee to the daylight hours, now. So far he's been relatively successful, but he thinks that it's probably because he spikes his tea with alcohol).

After his parents tire of watching Battlestar Galactica (their new thing, which Tweek stopped being able to watch because he finds himself in sleep-deprived stupors during the school days wondering if any of his classmates are Cylons) and head up to bed, Tweek tunes out their pre-sleep sexual activity – _gross gross gross gross oh Jesus fuck gross gross – _with trance music and sets up his easel in the kitchen, where he'll start the kettle boiling and paint whatever random shit comes to mind. He's actually pretty good, he thinks, though his artworks are a little lowbrow and really fucking creepy (or so he believes normal people would think from an objective standpoint, not that he ever intends to reveal his art to anybody _ever_).

Tonight, once Tweek is certain that his parents are asleep, he decides that he'll treat himself. He typically waits until his parents are _well_ past dead to the world, because he's paranoid that they'll wake up and catch him in the act.

Tweek clumsily makes his way upstairs, careful not to spill the tea in his florid cup as he steps. He sounds loud, too loud for this quiet fucking house. He hopes he doesn't wake up his parents. He does not want to get caught. It would be embarrassing. Possibly. His parents make no fucking sense.

They both smoke weed outside on the porch during the warmer nights, rocking on the porch swing together. They pretend that Tweek doesn't know what they're doing and speak disapprovingly of drugs when he's around – but his mom always giggles conspiratorially when his dad revs up on a metaphorical lecture involving the brain on drugs.

Tweek thinks his brain on drugs is awesome, but you don't simply run around telling your parents that you think so. That would be stupid.

But Tweek had a really hard week, okay? Fucking Cartman stuck gum in his hair on Monday, and his mom had to take it out with peanut butter. Tweek hates peanut butter. It smells suspicious and what if he's allergic to it and who knows how many weird diseases could be in peanuts, really? Plus, his mom buys the natural kind and it has all this oil that sits on the top and makes him want to cry in disgust. On Wednesday, they had a fire drill. Tweek had thought that it was real and had a panic attack because he thought that he was going to be burned alive. And then there was yesterday.

Fucking yesterday.

He didn't _mean_ to punch Clyde.

It just happened, okay?

Clyde had been discussing the previous night's episode of Survivor, which evidently had involved eating bugs. He just wouldn't shut up about the fucking bugs, and while yapping about aforementioned bugs, he was chewing. He was speaking in between chews and swallows of the cafeteria's decidedly suspicious chicken meal, in which Tweek thinks that there might not actually be much real chicken at all.

It took about thirty seconds of open-mouthed chewing and discussions about dining on bugs for Tweek to be pissed off, and when he asked Clyde to politely desist, Clyde's response had been as such:

"God, Tweek, you're so fucking sensitive sometimes."

So Tweek punched him.

He got suspended.

So, really, he's had the whole day to himself. But still. Tweek's Friday nights are sacred. He doesn't dare disturb his scheduled Friday night alone time simply because he spent the entirety of Friday alone, anyway. He's not one to break routine.

Tweek opens his bedroom door as quietly as possible, wincing when it creaks. He spares a glance at his parents' bedroom door, but it remains closed. His dad's snoring goes on as if no disturbing creak ever occurred. Good. That's good. Nevertheless, he doesn't turn on his lights. What if his parents became suddenly very sensitive to light? There are many factors to consider here and he wants to be careful to be attentive to each one.

The moon is full tonight. It's bright, too, and especially big. It casts shadows that make Tweek stumble over his own feet for fear that whatever creature in closet will pop out and claw him to death.

Or something like that.

Tweek keeps his stash in the bottom drawer of his dresser, underneath his impressive collection of flamboyantly patterned pajama pants. He has so many that he figures, even though he wears pajamas most of the time and they are always in laundering circulation, that his mom will never find the box when she's putting his clean clothes away, because the box will always be underneath more pajama pants.

He moves aside the neatly folded and stacked section to the far right of the bottom drawer (these ones are all some shade of green. He insists that his mother organize his pajama pants by color).

Tweek takes out the box. It's an old jewelry box from when his mother was a little girl. He took it from her room when he was nine because he liked the song it played when you opened it. Now, the song doesn't play anymore, and the box's only redeeming quality is that the ugly faux jewels on the top of it are still kind of shiny. Tweek likes when things shine.

Up until Tweek turned sixteen, he'd never tried any drugs beyond smoking pot with Kenny in the school parking lot. But, on his birthday, Kenny brought him something new.

As it happens, most people tend to underestimate Kenny McCormick. Tweek never has, probably because he doesn't underestimate anybody. Nonetheless, he doesn't think that the general population of South Park would finger McCormick for being a Chemistry whiz, and, coincidentally, the one that's been supplying the teenagers of their corner of the Rockies with all varieties of interesting drugs. The only reason anybody _would_ suspect him is because of his parents' history with meth, but the law enforcement in Park County is about as fucking useful as a shot to the head.

On Tweek's sixteenth birthday, Kenny brought him LSD-laced sugar cubes. He sells them to other people now, too, but Kenny has even said that he makes them special just for Tweek, because they're friends. Drug friends, but definitely friends.

Rolled tidily in a plastic Ziploc baggie, Tweek has four sugar cubes left. He'd be better sparing, because he doesn't get paid until next week.

He takes two with him back downstairs, to where he's set his teapot beside his easel. Tweek refills his cup and dunks one cube in the hot tea, watching as it dissolves slowly. He mixes it with a spoon, just to be sure.

After sticking his big-ass headphones over his ears (he doesn't trust the kind you put _in _your ears, because what if you went deaf?), Tweek takes his first generous sip, and continues his painting.

So far, it's just a sky. A pink and yellow and purple sky, with thin, skimpy clouds.

But then –

Before long –

Tweek is _tripping balls._

The table is rippling like the ocean. That's cool. Tweek kind of wishes that he could surf on it, except that he lives in a landlocked state and surfing sounds pretty scary.

Shit. What a _shark_ lives in his table? It could be a nice shark, of course, but he can't know for certain.

Tweek paints. He paints a vicious man-eating teacup, with rabid, bloodshot eyes. Except, when he begins to outline what the feral teacup is dining on, it turns into a shark. A shark with bugs coming out of it instead of guts.

He dances when he paints. That's part of why he needs time to be alone. To listen to weird, slow electronic music with a soft beat and repetitive words, and just dance while he paints the strange things that plague his mind. Then they won't be in his head anymore, they'll be on the canvas. Once they're on the canvas, the nasty things in his head are trapped there forever, and they can't get him.

The sound of persistent knocking invades his brain. He doesn't think it's the music, and wonders if it's just an irritating part of his trip, like his brain just up and decided to rattle around to piss him off.

It takes a couple of seconds to realize that the knocking isn't in his head, and nor is it coming from his iPod. It is coming from his actual front door. It's real.

Tweek initially panics. Because, fuck, what if it's his parents, man? But then, he realizes that his parents are asleep upstairs and if they were to catch him dancing in front of his easel while high, they'd come from the stairs.

But this fucker at the door could wake them.

Tweek pulls his headphone down so that they're resting around his neck and dashes to the door, prying it open.

"Craig?" he says, or at least, he thinks that he says it.

Craig is all whirly. Or something. He just looks funny. He's kind of purple.

Oh, shit, wait.

Craig has a black eye.

"What happened?" asks Tweek, "You can come in. But be careful, I think there might be sharks in the table."

Craig enters the house without speaking, but after the door is safely closed and locked behind him, he asks, "Where are your pants?"

Tweek looks down. Oh, that. He explains, "I told you already. There are sharks in the table. I didn't want them to eat my pajamas."

"Jesus Christ, Tweek. You're fucking gone," Craig says. He's wearing a backpack on his shoulders. It isn't his school backpack. His school backpack is boring and plain blue. This one is the Red Racer backpack that he wore in elementary school and brings to sleepovers.

"Where did I go?" asks Tweek, confused. Then, he asks, "Are you sleeping over here?" Because you don't just bring the Red Racer backpack for no reason. That isn't how these things work, unless Craig was in some sort of a hurry. That would be silly, though, because Craig is never in any kind of hurry.

"I want to run away," Craig says plainly, "but you'll have to put your pants on before we go."

"Where are we going?" Tweek wishes he knew what the hell was happening, but he doesn't.

"Man, I don't know. What the fuck did you take?"

"Acid," Tweek make a vague gesture with his hand and tops it off with a murky laugh.

"Okay. Well. Put your pants on, we're running away," Craig tells him.

Tweek nods, feeling as though this makes the most sense of anything that he's thought all night, and goes to find his pants. He hid them in the oven to keep them away from the sharks in the table. These pajamas are patterned in kittens. They're supposed to be for girls, but he made his mom buy them when he saw them. He pulls his winter coat over this and slips flip flops onto his feet – the latter of which are purple, and also intended to be worn by women. But, Tweek doesn't really give a fuck.

"You look gay as fuck," comments Craig.

"I _am_ gay as fuck," Tweek snips back.

"…Wait, what?"

Oh, yeah. Tweek isn't actually out to anybody other than his parents and Kenny. He guesses Craig won't tell anybody if Tweek tells him not to, so he clarifies, "Whoopsie. Gay, like, I like the cock." Tweek makes an ambiguous hand job movement with his right hand.

"Have you ever even done anything with a dude, Tweek?" asks Craig. They head down the front steps of Tweek's house and start walking toward Main Street.

If Tweek were sober, he'd probably have said _how does that have anything to do with knowing that I'm gay? Like, I saw cock and just decided, well, that looks like fun. _But he's nowhere near sober, and so he says, "Totally."

"_What_. Who," Craig speaks in non-questions a lot of the time.

"Mm, Kenny," Tweek says, and his dick stirs in his kitten pajamas as he thinks about it. Kenny is nice. He's sexually generous, and Tweek thinks that he might like getting Tweek to scream in a way that isn't popping out from behind places and scaring him, like stupid Cartman.

"You fucked Kenny," states Craig.

"Well, no. Technically he fucked me. Lots of times too. You know, he has a really pretty penis."

"I don't want to talk about McCormick's dick, thank you," Craig states nasally. He fishes around in the pocket of his coat and takes out his cigarettes, which, coincidentally, he bought from Kenny. Kenny's older brother buys people cigarettes if they give him the cash, and Kenny passes them on. He offers Tweek one, and Tweek shakes his head, because the cigarettes kind of look like worms to him.

When Craig's lighter flares up, Tweek shrieks and covers his head.

"What the fuck?" Craig mumbles, cigarette bouncing between his lips.

"I'm covered in flames!" Tweek cries.

"You're not covered in flames," Craig tells him.

"I'm not?" Tweek sniffles, and pats himself down to make sure that Craig is not lying to him.

Main Street is eerily quiet. Being so tiny, South Park is always quiet, but Tweek doesn't like this kind of quiet. It's winter, so the crickets aren't out. And they're in the middle of nowhere, so there are no cars or loud sounds that are white noise to people that live in cities. Tweek's glad he lives in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't handle more than he already does here. People are just so weird. They have the stupidest fucking issues and Tweek doesn't understand.

"Why don't you like penises?" Tweek asks Craig.

Craig exhales a cloud of smoke and says, "Stop talking, please."

Tweek goes on anyway, "I mean, you have a penis. I've seen it. Briefly. It would suck if you had a penis and you didn't like it. Do you not like your penis?"

"I am perfectly content with my penis, Tweek," grumbles Craig.

"Content isn't the same as _like_, you dumb fucker. Do you _like_ your penis?" Tweek has the slightest inkling that he might be invading Craig's personal space by interrogating him about schlongs, but this revelation actually delights him, and so his grins while he waits for Craig to answer him.

Craig doesn't seem to want to answer him. He inhales off of the end of his cigarette, walking a few steps ahead of Tweek, probably because he finds Tweek annoying. That's okay. Tweek's used to people finding him annoying. Personally, he believes that he has insights into the world that other people are too fucking stupid or blind to see themselves, but fuck those guys. He'll be the only one left standing if shit goes down.

"So you don't like your penis."

"God, would you shut up?"

Typically, having such a thing said to Tweek would make him feel humiliated and he'd want to curl into a ball and cry. Fortunately for him, that isn't how he functions on acid.

"Nope. I will not shut up, because you're an asshole. I like _my _penis," Tweek contributes.

"And McCormick's, apparently," mutters Craig.

"I don't just like his. I _love_ his."

"That's great, Tweek. I'll remember that next time I'm considering having sex with Kenny," Craig sarcastically quips in return.

"You should. I highly recommend it," Tweek tells Craig. If Craig got laid, maybe he'd stop being all uptight and stiff and crap. He doesn't like when people touch him, and he doesn't like talking to people, and he doesn't like much of anything, really. Tweek wonders, then, why he is friends with Craig. There are just so many annoying things about Craig. Like his eyebrows. They're like –

"Jesus Christ!" Tweek shouts, and he dives forward to pluck those _things_ off of Craig's face.

"Ow! What the hell are you doing? You just ripped off some of my fucking eyebrows, you cockfuck!"

"They're caterpillars!" exclaims Tweek, diving back in to try and get the clingy fuckers off of Craig's face. Craig is his friend. It is his duty to make sure his face is free of caterpillars.

"They're not caterpillars, you flaming fucking moron," Craig irritably says, pushing Tweek back a third time when he ducks forward. With his cigarette-free hand, Craig tugs his hat down over his eyebrows and glares at Tweek full-force.

"Wow, you made them go away," Tweek says, eyes widening with abject wonder. He asks, "How did you do that? I want to learn how."

"I want you to learn how to shut the fuck up, but we can't all get what we want," Craig says.

"I didn't have to come run away with you, you know," Tweek haughtily responds, "I could be back home, heroically protecting you from table sharks. But no. You wanted me to run away with you."

Craig doesn't talk to him after that. Even when Tweek tries talking to him, Craig won't say anything back. Tweek thinks that maybe he's angry, that maybe he pushed Craig too far. He didn't mean to. He just wanted to make sure that his friend was free of caterpillars. Tweek thinks that that's actually a rather nice gesture to make for a friend, so why the hell is Craig being so much of a prick?

They're not in South Park, then. They're walking along the highway. Tweek's feet are cold. Maybe he should have put on socks, and closed shoes instead of flip-flops. It's freezing and probably like three in the morning. Craig flicks his cigarette into the road.

They could _die_ out here.

Tweek smothers a shriek. Craig turns his head just a little, looking at Tweek from over his shoulder. He says nothing, and turns back to face along the road. There aren't sidewalks, here. They're along the highway now, and the gravel is getting stuck between Tweek's toes. It hurts. He whines. Craig looks at him again.

There are no streetlights out this far.

It is dead, pitch black.

Monsters live in the dark.

Tweek cries out in earnest, then, and Craig stops walking.

He gruffly asks, "Are you alright?"

"No," sobs Tweek, "I am not alright. I want to go home. There are monsters out here, Craig, and they're going to eat us."

"There aren't – nevermind," Craig sighs, "Let's sit down for a minute, okay. Maybe if we don't move, the monsters won't notice us."

That makes sense, Tweek thinks, but he still doesn't feel safe just standing here in the open air. He darts forward and smacks into Craig's chest. Craig grunts in pain, but Tweek ignores him, shaking and sniffling into his winter coat.

Reluctantly, Craig pulls his arms around Tweek's bony back. He guides them back away from the road to sit on the side. He tugs at Tweek's hand and says, sounding exhausted, "C'mon. You can put your head in my lap or something." Craig normally wouldn't treat Tweek so carefully – he's rather indifferent to Tweek, or so Tweek has always assumed – but Tweek going on a bad trip seems like the last kind of person that Craig needs to be an asshole to in their current situation.

Craig plops down in the dirt and gravel.

"Oh Jesus! There's one right there!" shrieks Tweek, burying his head near the collar of Craig's t-shirt. Two huge, round yellow eyes are headed straight for them. They're going to die. There's no other way out of here. They'll be dead by morning for sure. And Tweek didn't even get to tell his mom that he loves her. He cries into Craig's shirt.

"That's a car," Craig says, but Tweek knows that he's just saying that to make Tweek feel better. Tweek knows the truth. There are monsters everywhere out here. They love the dark and especially love the mountains. He and Craig are doomed to be some beast's breakfast.

Craig wraps his arms around Tweek and pulls him into his lap so that their chests are pressed together. Tweek feels guilty on top of being terrified, because Craig must be scared of the monsters too, but he's taking care of Tweek instead of himself because Tweek is acting like a baby.

"I'm sorry," sobs Tweek.

"It's fine," Craig stiffly responds, giving Tweek's thin shoulder an awkward pat.

Tweek blows his nose on Craig's t-shirt. Craig lets out a frustrated sigh. When Tweek dares to look up at him, Craig looks _pissed. _Or deflated. Or melancholy. Tweek doesn't know exactly what it is, but he's definitely not in a good mood. And his black eye makes him look funny. Tweek pokes at the bruised skin underneath Craig's eye. He flinches back and mutters, "Cut that out."

"What happened to your eye, Craig?" Tweek asks, "Was it one of the monsters?"

"Sort of. Yeah. I guess," Craig mumbles.

"It was? What did it to?"

"It was drunk and it tried to hit my sister," explains Craig.

"Wow, what an asshole," Tweek remarks, "Don't monsters know that sisters are off limits? At least, I think they are. I don't have a sister. But I like your sister. Even if she's a little scary."

That makes Craig's lips pop up on one side. He says, "She likes you too."

"Craig?"

"What."

"Thank you for keeping away the monsters."

"You're welcome," he says shortly. He stares Tweek in the face for a long time before asking, "…how did you figure out that you're gay?"

Tweek scrunches up his face and shrugs, "I dunno, man. I just knew. Or at least, my boners knew. Which is fucking embarrassing, by the way. In middle school, I stayed in the nurse's office sometimes because I'd pop a stiffy in the middle of class looking at you or Kenny or something."

"Looking at me," Craig states. His hat is covering his eyebrows, but if it wasn't, Tweek imagines that they'd be lifted.

"Oops. I said that out loud, didn't I?" Tweek giggles into Craig's shirt. He'll be mortified by this when he comes down from his high, he's sure, but that probably won't happen until sometime tomorrow.

"Hey Tweek," Craig breathes quietly.

"Hi Craig," Tweek replies.

"Can I…" Craig pauses. He frowns, and then leans back a little, as if reconsidering what he was about to say.

"Can you what?" asks Tweek, cocking his head to the side.

"…Are you hard?"

"Lil bit. Sorry," Tweek nuzzles his nose in Craig's neck and comments, "You smell nice."

"Can I, uh," Craig clears his throat and swallows, "take care of…er, that?" He indicates – just barely pointing – to Tweek's pajama pants.

Now Tweek is confused. Surely, this must be a product of his high. He glances from side to side, wondering if he's fallen asleep at the kitchen table at home and is having erotic dreams about Craig (again). He isn't certain, so he eyes Craig and says, "Are you real or is this a dream?"

"I'm real," Craig says. He's panting a little, and Tweek notices that in his jeans, he's hard too. Must be all this rubbing against each other that they've been doing. Tweek isn't actually that attractive. At least, he doesn't think he is. So it has to be the friction.

Craig is pink. Tweek pokes his cheek.

"I guess so," Tweek says, "I'm sorry it's not as pretty as Kenny's is, though."

"I don't care about McCormick's cock. I told you that already," Craig says.

Tweek shrugs, mainly because he thinks that talking about Kenny is fun, and scoots a little further back in Craig's lap so he can lower the waistbands of his kitten pajamas and his underwear. He takes out his erection and rubs at it a little, sighing happily. Craig moves his hand away and looks at it with intrigued curiosity in his face, staring in the same way that one might examine a slide under a microscope.

"Are you just gonna look at it, or are you actually going to touch me?"

"Shut up. I'm still getting used to this idea."

"It was your idea in the first place, asswad," Tweek protests. If Craig doesn't do anything about his hard-on, he will. He reaches t grip it again, and this time, Craig slaps his hand back.

Craig hesitantly touches his fingertips to Tweek's cock, staring at it, hard. Tweek whines low in his throat. This must be what encourages Craig to continue, because only then does he wrap his fingers, albeit loosely, around Tweek's erection. Tweek's head flops against Craig's shoulder. He moans a little.

Craig begins a series of jerky, unsure pumps, not looking Tweek in the eye, but staring solidly at his dick, as though if he moves a modicum of his attention to something else, he won't be able to do it anymore. Tweek, meanwhile, inhales the scent of Craig's neck. It's nothing special in reality, but Tweek has always secretly loved getting close enough to sniff at Craig. That's probably creepy, he knows, but he feels sometimes like Craig emits some kind of weird pheromones that are intended to attract one Tweek Tweak. Because, really. It seems like he's the only one that's noticed that Craig smells delicious.

Tweek kisses Craig's neck. He's always wanted to. So he does.

Craig doesn't react one way or another. He just keeps his hand moving in soft tugs. So Tweek kisses his neck again. And again. And again, until he begins moving his mouth up further, pressing kisses along Craig's prickly jaw.

Then, they're nose to nose, and Craig's eyes flicker up to meet Tweek's.

It's Craig that dips his lips forward and presses them to Tweek's. He tastes kind of gross, like cigarettes. Tweek tastes like tea and yummy things.

Tweek comes onto his pajamas and Craig's coat. He feels like everything around him is spinny and unreal, and he has to break off their kiss because he's dizzy, like he's been spinning for hours.

"I don't feel so good," Tweek says.

"I don't think that's how that was supposed to go," Craig frowns.

"That felt nice. _Now _I feel funny," Tweek says, because he doesn't want to discourage Craig from any possible future hand jobs.

"Maybe you shouldn't have dropped so much acid, stupid," Craig says.

"Maybe we shouldn't have run away, stupid," retorts Tweek. He feels icky and wonders if the monsters are out here still. He asks Craig, "Do you think monsters like the smell of come? What if we've attracted them? What if we die, Craig?"

"We won't die. Come doesn't attract monsters. It's the opposite. Like bear spray or something."

"Are you just saying that to make me feel better?" demands Tweek, narrowing his eyes.

"Why would I lie to you."

"Because I'm crazy," Tweek replies, "Craig, I wanna go home."

Craig heaves a long sigh, but then says, "Okay. Let's go home." He pulls Tweek's underwear and kitten pajamas back over Tweek's flaccid cock, before he heaves them both up onto their feet. Tweek is wobbly. He falls.

They end up calling Mrs. Tweak to come and pick them up from the side of the highway, even though they're a mere few minutes outside of South Park, because Tweek refuses to walk. She shows up ten minutes later in fluffy slippers and bathrobe patterned in cherry blossoms, driving the family minivan.

"What happened, pumpkin?" she asks, as Tweek and Craig load themselves into the back.

"We were running away," Tweek says, "but I missed you."

"I'm glad you decided to come back, sweetheart," Mrs. Tweak says.

Tweek buckles himself in and leans his head on Craig's shoulder. Craig slides his eyes over to stare, but doesn't say anything.

"Hey Craig?" Tweek whispers.

"Mm."

"Do you really not like your penis?"

Craig rolls his eyes and says, "I like my penis, Tweek."

"Good," Tweek tells him, "because I want to meet him sometime."

After that, Tweek falls asleep with his face in Craig's neck.

Craig supposes that running away failed miserably, but at least he learned a thing or two.


End file.
